The Ninth Gate
by Roman Polanski
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Actor: Barbara Jefford, Emmanuelle Seigner, Frank Langella, Johnny Depp, Lena OlinDirector: Roman Polanski
Brand: Lions Gate
Writer: Roman Polanski
Producer: Adam Kempton
Producer: Alain Vannier
Producer: Antonio Cardenal
Writer: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Writer: Enrique Urbizu
Writer: John Brownjohn
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of The Ninth Gate
DVD Review: My Opinion
Summary: 5 Stars
When The Ninth Gate (1999) was released, the critics that expected more than just a good movie from Roman Polanski (1933), a famous filmmaker who made such a brilliant pictures as Chinatown (1974) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), were disappointed. It is not hard to be a good director: made one good movie, made another, found your place under the sun and your fans. But, if you made one great movie, be aware that your fans won't forgive you for crap in the future and critics will gladly stomp all over you for ruining your own standards.
In 1999 every a little intelligent person, everyone who watches TV news or reads newspapers knows Roman Polanski if not as famous director but at least as participant of sexual scandal back in 1974. His movies Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby are world renown and still hold high rankings in respectful tabloids. But scandal reputation doesn't stand on his way to making relatively good movies, write screenplays, and act himself. If there is an example of the person who magnets bad things, that's Roman Polanski. If there is an example of a person who endures and overcomes tragedy with maximum profit, then that's also Roman Polanski. As you can read on [...], the author of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and Repulsion (1965) was born in Poland in 1933; he lived thru terrible Nazi ghetto in Krakow while his parents died in concentration camp. This was just the beginning of the tragedies. Once he finished his movie Knife in Water (1962), after he just married Sharon Tate and moved to the USA with his wife (during the final months of pregnancy), she was kidnapped, tortured and killed by Charles Manson and his henchmen. This event put him out of balance for a long time and in a couple years in 1979 he permanently left the USA because of a lawsuit against him which accused him of violating 13 years-old girl in Jack Nicolson house (he ran away not long before the trial). So by 1999 Polanski is both famous and infamous. His Chinatown (1974) won an Oscar in nomination the "Best Writing, Original Screenplay" and 18 other wins amongst 22 nominations. Polanski also likes to act in his movies, mostly in episodes in Chinatown and Dance of the vampires (1967). He's also a brilliant writer. Sometimes he'd write by himself (Rosemary's Baby, Tragedy of Macbeth (1971)) but usually as a co-writer of John Browniohn and Gerard Brach (Pirates (1986), Tess (1979), Frantic (1988), Bitter Moon (1992)). The Ninth Gate was also co-written by Brownjohn and Enrique Urbizy adopting the novel El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The Ninth gate is almost European movie. All session were made in Paris, Lissabon, and Spain. Maybe that's why the movie didn't make much in the USA. According to The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia, the budget of the movie was 38.000.000$ (probably Johnny's toll). Well USA collections are only $18.000.000. It still sad because The Ninth Gate is not a soup opera, but worldwide was better in collections with $58,401,898 so in the end they covered the budget.
The Ninth Gate is not in the list of top 250 by IMDB as a great movie, which disappoints, but it's in the top 100 of worst movies, which is still something. So what's wrong? In The Ninth Gate Polanski ones again refers to complicated relationship of Human&Devil. It is a hot topic and Rosemary's Baby was a success. But Polanski could not repeat it even thou he took part in writing the screenplay. Not a single critic had anything positive to say about the movie after the release. Some were less rude, like Leah Rozen from People Weekly, who lets us know that The Ninth Gate is the weakest of a genre but is still earns some points for black humor and with Johnny Depp's acting alone he can improve even the silliest of movies; being co-written and directed by Roman Polanski, Ninth Gate adds another page into book of devil after Rosemary's Baby even if not as bright, but still of high rank (Leah 32). Stanly Kauffmann from The New Republic is less patient. He does not like neither Johnny Depp, nor screenplay, nor Seigner, nor anything. Weak character development with no plus to their appearance makes a bad impression of the movie. And his review ends with sentence "This picture is stupid"(Kauffmann 25). Antony Lane form The Current Cinema says that there is nothing to watch in this movie besides naked Emmanuelle Seigner (Lane 145). Critic from ReelViews also writes the movie is utterly simple and mindless; it leaves no food for thought and looks like a chaotic mix of genres without a proper direction. Next he adds that maybe a bad translation of the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte which Polanski adopted for screenplay (Berardinelly). It's interesting that in an interview that Polanski gave after the premier of The Ninth Gate in Poland he doesn't see any negative sides to the movie. He says that the screenplay is perfect, special effects are great and that he knowshow to make a movie better than anyone and he doesn't give a damn about critics: they do their job; he does his (Fuchs).
Polanski loves his movies like parents love their children. But what about the watchers? Those people who pay money to see this movie, those who make decision to see the movie. It's been 10 years since the movie's release. Are people still watching it? Yes, they continue to watch it and share their impressions and besides. They do not get paid for that, so their opinion is the most valuable and objective. For instance Patrick Galagan finds that regardless of flaws in screenplay and slow pace the movie still has many positive sides. But at the same time he doesn't forget to point out that tension rises perfectly accompanied by soundtracks and music throughout the movie, simply charming; Patrick also finds comparison with Good acting by Johnny Depp who acts a bastard who cares only about his reward and nothing can possibly stop him from completing the task and collecting it; also Galagan finds that Polanski is following the old Hitchcock's school of classic thriller (Galagan). Majority like this movie. According to [...] rating, the movie has 6.6 rating and 120 people from 370 who liked to write releases on Amazon.com and ranked it with 5 stars and only 20 gave one star.
I purposefully haven't read the positive reviews from Amazon because I intended to write a positive review myself. Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is frankly successful and slightly arrogant detective book-seller whose specials is selling and buying very rare books. One of his regular clients Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) has a unique library with rarest foliants which are dedicated to Satan and his traditions. One of these books called The Ninth Gate was co-written by Lucifer himself and according to rumors contains knowledge of summoning the devil (to mention book's release date was in 1666). Apparently, Balkan had tried to use this book to provoke Lucifer. That unpleasant subject (why Balkan needs it is for everyone to wonder, but well... who'd resist summoning Satan and chat with him) but he got nothing. Balkan knows there are two more editions of the book somewhere and while he isn't sure his book is an original he gets Dean to take his version and compare it to others. Large fortune is offered for this job and Dean agrees to carry out the task with all due haste, although his regular life of cynical rare book-hunter starts to crumble due to various events occurring around him and the books (such as murderers). But that isn't Devils toll yet. It just happens there are other people who'd loved to dial Lord of Lies on cell phone. In search of two other copies Dean sets off to Europe and finds two other owners. In his investigation he realizes that all three books are originals and differ from each other only in graviours. And on top of that some of them have initials that refer to Lucifer. In order to get a full picture you have to have all three books and all of the pictures in them. But all of a sudden a big fuss starts around Dean and the books where he's being targeted, other owner's getting killed, some green-eye Girl ( Roman Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner) who is part-time guardian-angel whose identity of intentions remain secret. There is no point telling of what happens further or it won't be interesting to watch the movie, so let's talk about what it looks like.
The Ninth Gate is a very slow movie but it makes a good mystic atmosphere. This atmosphere is the base of the movie. Polanski is a master of tension and in this case he equalized it throughout the movie. Landscapes and the cities around which the movie takes place are gorgeous: couple ancient castles, empty Spain streets with walls on sides, huge mansion. It all supports the atmosphere. And of course - books, old books with creepy pictures, old libraries... What can possibly be more mystic? The Ninth Gate did not become a masterpiece, two hours are a little bit too much for it, but people who like slow detectives and mystic will still like it. It's fairly hard to discuss Roman Pulaski's art. Never in his whole life did he consider basic models of creating a movie. He proves it with his The Ninth Gate yet again. It's good for starters. There is no one in The Ninth Gate who will guide you during the screenplay and lore, exploring the key moments while delivering the main idea in the end. Forget about it. You'll have to force your brain out to guess or understand what is where, whose and why. At some point Polanski is trying to answer questions known only to him and at some points he's just being silly thus makes the movie incomprehendable. It is like a thick fog above the swamp and everyone sees what he thinks in it. I watched The Ninth Gate over a couple times to remember it. But I didn't rent this movie; I bought a DVD because I have a bad habit of buying good movies for my collection. I remember how I went to premiere with my friends and we couldn't buy tickets that evening. We went to the cinema next morning and the movie theatre was full even then. We were very astonished by The Ninth Gate that we've discussed it for an hour after the movie was over. And we saw this movie very differently. Some of my friends said that there is a question of culture development: God or the Devil. Some said that the main character is Dean and that Devil seduces him with money in order to take his soul. Some said that Polanski is parodying famous movies. They all were correct. Each of person will find something he thinks about in this movie and Polanski made sure that the majority of questions will remain without answers, most answers are on different questions and most characters would pop up from nowhere and late on vanish again for no apparent reason or cause. Movie ending is a complete prank by Polanski. I personally witnessed few watchers who yelled, "WTF" because Polanski stopped the movie in the meanest way (as musicians say - finished with seventh chord without any resolution) which enraged many. While the other half of the watchers quickly explained, it's all right and is according to what it's supposed to be. Mostly left satisfied, although some people didn't like the movie. But what did they expect? Polanski is Polanski, not a dollar that everyone likes.
The Ninth Gate did not impress me very much but I still enjoyed it. I pictured it as a prank and not an attempt to uncover some secrets. Some of ideas in the movie are great, especially the moment when Boris attempts to summon the Devil (this moment reminded me of the movie Hudson Haw). Yes, there are weak points to the movie, but I only noticed them after reading critics. For example, you can see bad screen work especially when there is a bike ride - the movie wouldn't lose anything without that scene and still you can see that Dean and the Girl are just shaking and not actually driving but my views don't mean that mystic-lovers won't find anything for themselves in The Ninth Gate. As a matter of fact there are some analogies with Angel Heart.
Should you watch The Ninth Gate? Yeah, why not? It won't leave anyone indifferent and plus, it is better than Oprah at the very least.
Description of The Ninth Gate
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